دانلود رایگان مقاله اهداف زیست محیطی رهبران سیاسی و تاثیر فرایند هویت اجتماعی

Abstract

Evidence of continued environmental degradation has led to a questioning of the traditional vision of unlimited economic growth in favour of sustainable development. Although several explicit environmental strategies were designed at the supranational level, the pursuit of environmental sustainability remains an aim driven by political concerns at the country level. This study aims to investigate the role of both “internal” (cognitive and motivational factors) and “external” (social forces and macro-economic conditions) contexts in influencing the propensity of political leaders regarding environmental matters. The findings indicate that cognitive and motivational factors tend to shape the environmental intentions of political leaders, whereas the “external” context does not have a significant impact. Our results suggest that the political leaders' propensity for addressing environmental matters is largely affected by the desire of leaders to establish or confirm an individual status (through political processes) or to conform to group norms. However, younger political leaders demonstrate a higher environmental propensity than do older leaders.

5. Conclusions, Policy Implications and Future Research

The aim of sustainable development is driven by political concern for environmental matters (Shi, 2004; Bradshaw et al., 2010; Levine et al., 2015). Different from the neoclassical model of Homo economicus, studies of cognition and behavioural economics highlight that human actors' goals and behaviours are affected by cognitive and motivational factors (internal context), as well as the external socio-economic context (Venkatachalam, 2008; Manner and Gowdy, 2010; Levine et al., 2015). To the best of our knowledge, this paper presents the first quantitative investigation of whether and to what extent environmental intentions of political leaders are influenced by “internal” and “external” contexts. The results are controlled for party size and demographic factors relating to age and gender, commonly considered influential in individuals' environmental propensity (Torgler and Garcia-Valinas, 2007; Torgler et al., 2008; Mzoughi, 2011). Our findings show that the environmental propensity of political leaders tends to be shaped by cognitive and motivational factors connected to social identification processes. Indeed, “external” context does not significantly impact the environmental intentions of political leaders. Our results suggest that political leaders' propensity for addressing environmental matters is largely affected by their desire to establish or confirm an individual status (through political processes) or to conform to group norms. However, younger political leaders demonstrate a greater propensity for addressing environmental issues. These results have several interesting policy implications. The environmental propensity of leaders should not be connected to a mere desire to establish or confirm an individual status through political processes or to conform to group norms. To overcome mere opportunistic or ideological behaviours, environmental awareness among future leaders should be increased. In addition to shorter-term policies, such as strengthening environmental legislation and related controls, it may also be helpful to introduce forward-looking policies, such as mandatory environmental education to form an effective culture of sustainable development. To ensure more alignment of shared future proenvironmental behaviours, these policies should be approved at an international level through a wide implementation of a binding common legislation in various countries.